


Last Words

by Threshie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Crying Jack Kline, Crying Sam Winchester, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Ghost Jack Kline, Grieving Sam Winchester, Hugs, Or Is he?, Post-Episode: s14e20 Moriah, Spooky, Talking To Dead People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 08:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19147651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Threshie/pseuds/Threshie
Summary: It’s been weeks since Jack died, so why does he keep visiting Sam every night?





	Last Words

It felt like he never slept anymore. Grief did strange things to a person, and Sam was no stranger to being unable to trust his own mind, but this felt real. It felt real.

Jack kept visiting him.

Sam never saw him, but he’d know the kid’s presence anywhere — that intent, curious, thoughtfully frowning presence. The childishness. The first few times, he’d drifted out of troubled dreams to the feel of someone sitting down on the edge of the bed. When Sam had opened his eyes, though, there had been no-one.

After a few of these incidents, he tried keeping his eyes closed and waiting. The presence remained. On the first night of that, they were both silent. On the second, Sam heard quiet humming — Jack’s voice, undeniably Jack’s. 

He was humming the Star Wars theme song.

On night three, Sam tried talking to him.

“Sam. Hello,” Jack had replied warmly. Sam had been struck by a wave of emotion at hearing him talk, something he never thought he’d hear again, and he hadn’t said anything else. Jack, or the ghost of him, seemed to accept it without any protest. The presence remained for awhile in companionable silence.

The visits continued for a week. Though Dean and Cas were both grieving just as much, neither of them mentioned Jack visiting them, or even dreaming about him. Sam wondered if he was losing his mind.

On day seven, Jack spoke first. 

Sam had laid down and closed his eyes, but he was wide awake, the same way he’d been each night since Jack had started actually speaking to him.

“Sam…?” Jack’s voice sounded small tonight, a little hoarse. Had he been crying?

“I’m here, Jack,” Sam murmured, keeping his eyes closed. 

He wanted more than anything to peek and see what Jack looked like, or whatever sounded so much like him. Looking made the presence vanish, though. Sam kept remembering his face with the eyes scorched out to empty sockets. He shuddered and tried to focus on the kid’s voice instead. 

“You, um…you okay?”

There was a moment of silence.

“Why did you lie to me, Sam? About the box?” Jack asked finally, sounding sad. “I expected Dean to lie, but not you.”

Sam instantly had a lump in his throat.

“I-I hated to do that…Jack,” he whispered sincerely. “I didn’t want to, but if I didn’t, you were gonna hurt more people.”

“I wanted to be good,” Jack said heavily. Sam felt the weight of the kid shift on the bedside as he moved a little. “I know it’s my fault. I chose to burn my soul.” His voice cracked as he added softly, “But I did it to save you.”

“I know you did.” Sam’s words came out thick. He wanted to open his eyes and look Jack in the face as he said this, to make him believe it. Why wasn’t he allowed that? “What I wanted to do was to trust you, Jack. But I-I couldn’t sacrifice the world just to prove I was right.”

Jack was quiet for a long time. After awhile, a tiny sob reached Sam like a punch in the gut. 

“I-I understand,” Jack sniffled. “I’m not Dean.”

It hurt to hear the tears in the kid’s voice. How did things go this wrong? None of them had been able to truly try to kill Jack, not even Dean in the end. How could he rest in peace, though, after how he’d gone out? 

No wonder he was haunting Sam.

“Dean?” Sam forced himself to ask.

“You’d sacrifice the world for Dean.” Jack didn’t sound jealous — he sounded wistful. Lonely. “Because he’s family, right? I just wanted to be like that, too. I never wanted to hurt people.”

Sam’s mind was parading images of Mom, Kelly, even Nick’s cooked corpse on the cabin floor. Apocalypse World, with its bleak bombed out deserts and survivors hiding from the angels. Michael smiling that chilling smile that made it clear something vast and inhuman and cruel was wearing Dean like a mask. 

Sam shivered. Some of the people Jack had hurt deserved to die. Michael would have destroyed the world without Jack. Michael would have murdered them, Sam and Dean and Cas, without Jack. Him and the last bits of his soul he had left to burn off…

Chuck’s words played for Sam too, with casual, disconnected fondness: 

_“You’re my favorite show.”_

There was never any good ending for Jack, was there? No hope, no chance, no matter how hard they fought for it together. God himself had had other plans.

Sam felt hot tears streaming down his cheeks, but he would keep his eyes closed if that kept Jack here even a minute longer.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he whispered, voice hitching in the middle. “You tried so hard to be good…you WERE so good, Jack. If Chuck — if GOD would’ve let you, y-you would’ve just done the best things, all the good things…” 

He stopped himself, taking a deep breath to try and calm down. It worked until he tried speaking again. 

“Y-you know we love you, right?”

The bed shifted again. Sam bit his lip, keeping his eyes closed tight. He felt the weight against his shoulder, though — Jack, leaning down to hug around his neck. 

“I know,” the kid promised. Sam put both arms around him and hugged him tight, and the person in his arms felt real and solid. “I love you, too.”

Sam opened his eyes.

The darkness of the bedroom pressed in all around him, painting shadows in the corners of the room. Sam’s arms were wrapped around himself.

He was alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for reading my fanfic! Some fics you work on for ages, and others come to you when you're just waking up and you haven't had your coffee yet. This fic is the latter. Now was Jack really there, or has Sam imagined/dreamed this entire story? Comments and kudos always appreciated! ♥


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